The Market System
Assessing the Importance of Markets
The importance of trade springs from the extensive degree of specialization observed in our society. Trade allows people to specialize according to their comparative advantage.
By engaging in trade, people can raise their standard of living. Trade today is much more complex and involves the decisions of billions of people around the world.
But how does an economy make trade possible, and how are the decisions of these billions of people coordinated? In most countries trade is carried out in markets.The Market is a system (an institution or arrangement) through which buyers and sellers come into contact to trade goods, services, commodities or financial instruments.
Markets determine the answers to the three fundamental questions: What goods and services will be produced? How will the goods and services be produced? Who will receive the goods and services that are produced? Opens in new window
Markets take several forms, such as the local fruit and vegetable market, the stock exchange or eBay. However, market doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical location.
In the modern world many trades are carried out virtually through computer and telecommunications links.
In a market the buyers are demanders of goods or services, and the sellers are suppliers of goods or services.Household and firms interact in two types of markets:
- Product market, and
- Factor markets.
Product markets are markets for goods—such as computers—and services—such as medical treatment.
Factors of production are the inputs used to make goods and services.
Factors of production are divided into four broad categories:
- Labor — This includes all types of work, from the part-time labor of teenagers working at McDonald’s to the work of top managers in large corporations.
- Capital — This refers to physical capital, such as machines, tools and computers, that is used to produce other goods.
- Natural resources — These include land, water, oil, minerals and other raw materials that are used in producing goods.
- Entrepreneurial ability — An entrepreneur is someone who operates a business. Entrepreneurial ability is the ability to bring together the other factors of production to produce and sell goods and services successfully.
Most people earn most of their income by selling their labor services to firms in the labor market.
